Crain’s Chicago Business

More restaurants sign up for Loop’s giant food hall

Furious Spoon has joined the list of restaurants taking part in Revival Food Hall, a 24,000-square-foot “food collective” slated to open this summer on the ground floor of The National, a 1907 Daniel Burnham-designed building at 125 S. Clark St. in the Loop.

Revival Food Hall is the latest project of Bruce Finkelman (owner of the Empty Bottle) and Craig Golden, principal owners of the hospitality collective 16” on Center, which also runs Longman & Eagle, Dusek’s, the Promontory and St. Lou’s Assembly, among others.

The 300-seat dining area will include 15 fast-casual stalls by Chicago neighborhood restaurants in a grab-and-go setting, plus a handful of all-new quick-serve concepts created by local chefs. There’ll be a coffee shop and full bar as well as one pop-up stall that rotates every three or four months.

And Chicago book publisher Curbside Splendor will have a shop inside Revival Food Hall selling local and independent books and records. “We’re excited about this,” publisher Victor David Giron says via email, “as the idea behind Revival is to create a unique space downtown that is devoid of chains, and celebrate community/lifestyle, local chefs and like-minded enterprises.”

Golden’s commercial real estate company, Blue Star Properties, is renovating the other 19 floors of The National building into loft-style offices. The owners have borrowed nearly $100 million to complete the overhaul of the building, which used to be the headquarters of Chicago Public Schools, Crain’s reported in April. A 10,000-square-foot event space on the sixth floor (including an outdoor area) will host private dinners and special events.

Lake Forest residents Meg Barnhart and Jane McKay have created a line of premium spice blends using the most popular recipes from their blog, the Zen of Slow Cooking. And they’ve raised more than $16,000 with aKickstarter campaign, which ends Saturday morning, meeting their $15,000 goal. The Kickstarter rewards—available for pledges starting at $25—include Southwest Fiesta, Smoky BBQ, Sweet & Spicy, and marinara spice blends as well as the e-book “Slow Cooking 101.”

LondonHouse, a 452-room luxury hotel, has opened in the historic London Guarantee and Accident building at the southwest corner of Michigan and Wacker, with a modernist 22-story glass tower addition designed by Chicago-based Goettsch Partners. German investment manager Union Investment Real Estate bought the hotel April 15 for $315 million, sellers Oxford Capital Group and Angelo Gordon said. At $697,000 per room, that’s the highest per-room price ever paid for a Chicago hotel, Crain’s reported. Twenty-three stories up on the hotel’s roof, the new LH Cupola is “Chicago’s coolest outdoor event space,” according to Crain’s.There’s also a rooftop bar seating 190 people on the 22nd floor called LH on 22.

The Westchester startup Crown Kandy Publishing is taking pre-orders for its “tranquility coloring kit” for adults. “Our kit . . . promotes relaxation, mindfulness and stress relief for adults,” co-founder LaToya White says by email. “Dealing with stress in our own daily lives, we set out to find a solution to help us all conquer those stressors.” The kit includes a coloring book, a jigsaw puzzle, a 54-piece card game, 24 high-quality coloring pencils, a pencil sharpener and a carrying case. The full kit is available for pre-order at $50. A spiral-bound coloring book called “Unleash The Colors of a Stress Free Mind,” which will ship in July, is available for $17.98. Crown Kandy holds monthly coloring parties at the Community House in Hinsdale and Brewpoint Coffee in Elmhurst.

The Chicago makers of the game Cards Against Humanity released a “Donald Trump Bug Out Bag” last month—a tactical duffel bag filled with survival supplies like seeds, iodine tablets, currency from Latin American countries, a gas mask and Cards Against Humanity’s 25-card “Trump Pack.” It was a limited run, and now the website says: “All 10,000 bags have sold out. When Donald Trump is elected President, you will perish in the wasteland. Sorry.”

Other new businesses on our radar: Portillo’s opened a new restaurant Tuesday at 520 W. Taylor St. in the South Loop. It’s the local company’s 43rd restaurant in the United States, but just the second in the city itself. The new building features a Prohibition Era theme, a double-lane drive-thru, and two outdoor seating areas. … Olive Mediterranean Grill is preparing to open two downtown restaurants — at 23 E. Adams St. and 111 W. Illinois St. The company already has two fast-casual eateries, at 1001 W. North Ave. in Chicago and 1726 Sherman Ave. in Evanston. … Amazing Lash Studio, a chain with more than 100 eyelash-extension salons in 18 states, has opened its first Chicago location — at 1845 N. Clybourn Ave. in Lincoln Park, owned by Janelle Panozzo. … Aesop, an Australian company that makes skin, hair and body care products, has opened its first store in the Midwest—at 1653 N. Damen Ave. in Bucktown. The local shop was designed by Norman Kelley, an architecture and design firm with offices in Chicago and New York.